NVMe namespace
A logical division of an NVMe SSD into several independent "devices" at the controller level — each namespace appears as its own drive (/dev/nvme0n1, n2 …). More fundamental than partitioning because it happens in the hardware.
Distinct from an OS partition: a namespace has its own sector size, its own capacity, and can be formatted/erased independently — it's lower in the stack. Use case (enterprise): isolate tenants on the same physical SSD, separate workloads with different sector formats (512B vs 4K), or share a drive between virtual machines. Tools: nvme-cli (nvme create-ns, nvme list). Related: ZNS (Zoned Namespaces) exposes the drive's zone structure for host-managed writing → less write amplification. Consumer SSDs usually have just one namespace; the feature shines in data centers and NVMe-over-Fabrics.